Võ Nguyên Giáp

Võ Nguyên Giáp

1911–2013 ○ Natural causes

The history teacher who defeated two empires without ever attending a military academy

As a young history teacher at a Hanoi lycée, he would sketch detailed Napoleonic campaign plans on the blackboard. His students called him 'the General.' Fifteen years later he accepted the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu.

A history teacher who, without formal military training, built the Viet Minh army and shattered French colonialism at Dien Bien Phu (1954), the first commander of a colonial liberation force to defeat a modern empire in pitched battle. As defence minister for three decades, he transformed the People's Army from a guerrilla band into a mechanised combined-arms force and masterminded the Ho Chi Minh trail, one of the 20th century's great logistical feats. In the war against the United States, he waged a protracted people's war aimed not at military annihilation but at breaking America's political will. In old age he became a prominent critic of bauxite mining on environmental grounds, remaining a public conscience long after leaving power.